Page 111 of Descent

Red the only color in the yellowed monochrome of the reel flickering before me. Red splattered from the veins of my own family. Splattered across the walls of my mind, rushing into the gutters of my damaged soul.

Arms encircle my knees, curling in for succor. For warmth.

Only now, in the empty night of my prison cell, do the puzzle pieces fit. Words scattered across years, sentences broken by gaps in my memory and consciousness find cohesion.

Dom. Ananke.

The Diamantes.

Ero and his brothers’ crime syndicate were our rivals. Our enemies for two centuries. Until a new don stepped up and brokered a truce with my grandfather, the ruling Zeus at the time.

Still, hostilities remained.

Until an ally overthrew the Diamantes.

Too many Lyras still held the old grudges against our former nemesis. They were too eager to join Dom and break the Lyra code, siding with a singular force as weapons.

Ananke orchestrated our undoing.

Removed the only neutral party that would stand against her consolidation of underworld power. Her infiltration of governments across the globe. The web spins out, and I clearly see it now, stretching across the horizon, blocking out the sun.

Ananke holds the detonator. She could unleash the world’s most vile demons on the populace with a word. Or she could turn those devil’s against each other and single handedly wipe out gang leadership worldwide.

Or unite them. Use them to…

Fucking hell. I can’t believe I’m about to think it:

…rule the world.

If I could feel anything, I would laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of it all.

So I cling to a single hope. The result of a well-placed bullet.

Ero either survived and cannot act to rescue me, putting himself in danger. Or he bled out. Either way, he’s free.

I hone that singular victory into a needle point, anchoring the last of my resistance. Like one fingertip hanging from a ledge.

And if I can hold onto that thin barb…

I can drive it straight through Ananke’s eye.

32

ERO

Lightning strikes my chest.

My nerves light up like a fucking Christmas tree of pain.

Feels like getting hit by a car, stabbed through the ribs, and dipped in sulfuric acid all at once.

Muscles lock up, release. Back to the darkness.

“Wakey, wakey, chocolate shaky.” Ciro’s snarky droll stabs its way into the sweet bliss of oblivion.

“I thought we were done with this,” I mumble, my mouth feeling spongy, my jaw aching.

Even my fucking teeth hurt.

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